Part A: Oil Contamination
The environmental and health effects of the average 3,000 oil spills annually worldwide have untoward consequences. An environmentally friendly solution to clean up these spills could have tremendous value to both the geographic region and the biological habitat where the spill occurs. A non-toxic, nano-scale solution to cleaning up petroleum spills both on land and in water is described.
Part B: Extraction of Hydrocarbons from Oil Sands
Oils sands contain a large amount of the world's potential oil reserves. Oil-sand, also called tar sand, is an earthy, dark gray substance with a shiny finish found in various size clumps or clods with a characteristic tar and oil odor. At the same time, it is both greasy and grainy to the touch. It is comprised of sand, clay, bitumen and a small amount of water. Tar sands are mined to extract the hydrocarbon-rich bitumen, which is then converted into synthetic crude oil or refined directly into petroleum products, like gasoline, heating oil, fuel oil and heating oil. Bitumen is a viscous semisolid that can be refined into synthetic crude oil. However, in the Northern Canadian oil sand fields it is trapped in the sand and clay and does not flow at ambient ground temperatures, all of which makes it difficult and expensive to extract. Even in warmer climates, bitumen is difficult to extract from oil sands.
Methods of extracting the bitumen currently use hot water combined with skimming techniques and organic solvents. The process is about 85% efficient when used in surface mining and 60-65% efficient with in-situ, or underground, mining. The current methods result in high fuel consumption and high carbon dioxide emissions. The need for an economical, energy efficient way to extract bitumen from sand without creating excess green house gasses is critical.